Irish Court Seizes $1.6 Million Called Secret IRA Fund

The Irish High Court seized the equivalent of $1.64 million from a bank Wednesday, asserting that the money was a secret Irish Republican Army fund.

Justice Minister Michael Noonan said the fund was derived from IRA crimes, “specifically extortion under threat of kidnap and murder.”

The government, acting without warning after banks closed Tuesday, rushed legislation through both houses of Parliament empowering it to seize funds that authorities suspect belong to subversive organizations.

Noonan said the government moved swiftly because it feared that the money was about to be moved out of Irish jurisdiction.

The Bank of Ireland, the country’s largest bank, turned the money over to the High Court on Wednesday in compliance with an official order.

The unprecedented move was widely seen as a setback for the IRA, which last Sept. 30 lost a seven-ton shipment of arms from the United States when it was seized by the Irish navy.

“Expect more kidnapings,” one senior Royal Ulster Constabulary officer, who spoke of condition he was not identified, said in a telephone interview from Belfast, Northern Ireland. “The IRA isn’t going to stop now.”

The overwhelming Roman Catholic IRA, outlawed on both sides of the border, is fighting a bloody guerrilla war to drive the British out of Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland.

British and Irish intelligence officials estimate that the IRA need a minimum of $1.5 million a year to maintain its legal political arm.

The Irish Northern Aid Committe, called Noraid, which sympathizes with the IRA, denied that any of the seized money came from the New York-based organization, which claims to raise $300,000 a year for welfare projects in Northern Ireland.

The British and Irish goverrnment maintain that Noraid money is used to buy arms.